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As a worldwide first, Denmark introduced a fat food tax – anything with more than 2.3% saturated fats will now cost extra. Denmark also has bad eating habits, but a rather low obesity rate. Why?

Big Brother Is Watching You Eating?

In the article about Arizona’s obesity tax, we already talked about a UK proposal that toyed with the idea of putting taxes on salt, sugar, saturated fats and alcohol, the big four food ingredients most closely related to rising obesity rates and heart disease. But this is the first time that a government actually did this drastic step.

Why should the government decide how much fat we eat? They also want to increase the tobacco price very significantly. In theory this is good — it makes unhealthy items expensive so that we do not consume as much or any and that way the health system doesn’t use a lot of money on patients who become sick from overuse of fat and tobacco. However, these taxes take on a big brother feeling. We should not be punished by taxes on items the government decides we should not use.

She poses a valid question also mentioned in above article: Should the government decide or is it a personal responsiblity?

Low Obesity Rate

That this move comes from Denmark is remarkable, as only 10% of its population is obese, compared to 34% in the US and 24.5% in the UK. Yet already in 2004, the country made it illegal for foods to have more than 2% of trans fats, while in summer 2010 taxes on candy bars, ice cream and soft drinks were increased by 25%.

Is Denmark’s low obesity rate due to measures like these or despite them? Would we interpret cause and effect the wrong way around should we follow suit? Maybe a look at how Danes eat helps us further.

Danish Eating Habits

While in the US all-you-can-eat offers and $1 fast food meals are a common sight, eating out is an expensive affair in Denmark, with the average prices being about 50% higher than the European average (PDF). Eating out is therefore reserved for special occasions, and only recently and among younger people with appropriate financial means has eating at fast food restaurants become a more frequent phenomenon.

But when Danes eat at home, things are rather hearty and do not quite follow what health counselors will advise you to eat either.

Where’s the smørrebrød?

In the country’s history, due to the Northern climate, fruits and vegetables were hard to come by and still today only play a limited role in the Danes’ palate. Instead, we find foods high in salts and fat, like flæskesteg (roast pork with crackling), gravad laks (cured or salted salmon), hvid labskov (boiled beef stew with potatoes) or smørrebrød (an open rye bread sandwich, often served with bacon, steak, salmon etc.).

The Hearty Eating But Healthy Dane?

Why are most Danes of normal weight, when it seems many of them still eat like their Viking forefathers preparing their longships for a dangerous and exhausting voyage to Greenland and beyond? Is it governmental or self-control?

7 Comments

Don’t get me wrong but I think they don’t give a flying dime about peoples health.
First off, weight issues are not always fixeable and in a great majority it’s something that will take years to fix. Don’t get me wrong, making people to lose weight is a fantastic move but…is it the best move? I think not. First off, if I’m fat it’s either…because I can’t stop being fat or because I don’t care about being healthy. Secondly, it’s ironic how most of this cunts, who make this silly laws are, in fact, overweight/obese. The only reason why the care it’s because they could potentially reduce the costs of hospital care and whatnot for those people…why just not make them pay those things instead of giving them for free? What about if I don’t want to pay this taxes and decided to change my life, I will have to pay them till I get to a healthy weight? Laughing out loud.
To end this, I don’t know if it’s the case in Denmark but why not give people more flexibility and places where they can exercise and learn the proper nutrition? I mean, sports in my country are paid and I mean, HIGHLY paid and schools time tables suck and if I want to be in a sport I have to go past 10p.m, how can a student be ‘mentally healthy’ with so much stress in his life?

To give a small update on this topic we the Danes haven’t changed our consuming patterns. We still buy the same foods although the prices increased. There’s two aspects to this: 1 the government is making a lot of money due to this tax and 2 border shopping in Germany has also increased since the introduction. The tax has nothing to due with public health it’s just another way of making money for the government 🙁

If this is the case, then that was in my opinion a rather unfortunate move of the Danish government, as it may have forfeited people’s trust. When a real health measure has to be implemented, this likely will backlash.